Tag: Probrand

UK Businesses are risking a potential data breach due to a lack of adequate server security, new research has revealed.

A survey of 1,050 UK workers in full or part-time employment, carried out by technology services provider Probrand.co.uk has revealed that a shocking 44 percent of businesses are failing to properly protect their client and employee data by not adequately securing their server. Read more…

Reseller and managed services outfit Probrand has launched an online marketplace as part of a cunning plan to find a different route to its customers.

The outfit has set built an enterprise marketplace platform with 300,000 products online with live price and stock level updates. Probrand supply chain director, Ian Nethercot said the move was a direct response to business buyers wanting a new way to buy IT products and services. Apparently customers want ease, transparency and savings via consumer style self-service that delivers business pricing and process.

“Suppliers want the same to unlock opportunity. We see a channel to supply IT and have open conversations with resellers, MSP’s, distributors, vendors and ERP providers looking to maximise the buy and supply opportunities our marketplace presents”, he added.

He said that a significant number of customer buying decisions that started online and cold calls just did not work any more.

Alongside the product listing the platform also gives customers the chance to configure their own marketplaces with the option to add other categories to establish it as a procurement tool.

Nethercot said: ‘‘B2B IT purchasing can be a deeply frustrating experience for buyers who, in addition to interruptive sales calls, are wasting time and money navigating a complex market where prices and stock levels are constantly fluctuating.

“The Probrand Marketplace removes these hassles by merging the benefits of an online marketplace with the power of self-service tools and specialist people when help is needed.  Buyers quickly get the value they deserve. Suppliers can unlock new opportunities.”

Customers are claiming they are receiving up to 40 “unsolicited and unhelpful” IT supplier calls a day as cold calling is getting out of control.

VAR Probrand, which surveyed IT suppliers and buyers, found that over 60 percent of end-user respondents were being hounded by between nine and 40 calls from IT suppliers.

On average, 90 percent of those calls last between one and five minutes, so end users are burning up to three hours a day fielding unwanted calls. What is bizarre about the sudden uptick is that cold calling is mostly ineffective. Probrand points to research by the Harvard Business Review which finds that 91 percent of cold calls do not work.

Probrand said that there was a complexity and inefficiency out there that the industry at large needs to tackle customers are changing the way they buy – they still want to purchase either on or offline, but it has to be “on their terms” and without disruptive sales calls throughout the day.

The research also found that half of IT suppliers were frustrated by a lack of visibility of end users through the channel.

The study also found that 26 percent of distributors and vendors said poor third-party marketing was a big challenge, while 32 percent were frustrated with poor ROI from reseller marketing activity. Poor reporting was also cited as a contributing problem.